Endgame Strategy
by NeoVenus22
Summary: PRSPD. Sky meets up with his 'old friend' again after becoming Red Ranger, but with time does not come clarity. [Sequel to The Way the Game is Played. Slight crossover with Joan of Arcadia.] [complete]


Sarafu challenged me to write a sequel for 'The Way the Game is Played', set sometimes after 'Endings'. Spoilers contained within for both the story and the episode.

Disclaimer: no one mentioned belongs to me. Except for Bronson Tate, whom I have decided for the purposes of this story to go along with the canon of the show and have him be dead.

* * *

Cruger ended the promotion ceremony with a rare decree that the Rangers were to take the rest of the day off. Syd and Z proposed the idea of a party, but Bridge backed out, citing that he wanted to go home for a little while, visit his family, share his good news.

Sky tried to ignore the sad-eyed looks they all cast him when Bridge said "family."

But it wasn't a bad idea, he thought. Sky knew how proud his dad would be that Sky had followed in his footsteps, carried the Tate legacy one generation further. Sky wished he could see his father's face when he broke the news, but the truth was he was having trouble remembering his dad's face anymore without the aid of the photograph on his nightstand.

He'd meant to go to the cemetery. He hadn't been in awhile, too busy, but he still knew the route like the back of his hand: turn left at the gate, up the path with the yellow roses, right at the big tree, left at the mausoleum. Bronson Tate's grave was easy to find: it was at the top of the hill, always decorated with bouquets left by grateful and admiring citizens.

Sky knew the route well, but his feet didn't take him to the cemetery. Rather, he found himself heading over to the worn stone benches of the park, a place he hadn't been in nearly a year. The chess field.

A sunny afternoon shouldn't have found the place empty, but Sky was surprised to find only one table was occupied, and even then, only by one person. He'd seen the man once before, and had never been able to forget his face. Slightly craggy with middle age, flecks of gray in his beard, dark eyes, and a smile that never quite extended to its full potential. "Hello, Sky."

Sky sat down, half scared, half angry, entirely curious.

"Do you want to play?" the man said, gesturing at the board all set up. Sky had waited almost two years for this rematch, and his fingers tensed in anticipation.

"White goes first, right?"

The man smiled, almost sadly.

Five moves into the game, the silence began to grate on Sky's nerves. He'd gotten so used to the flow of empty chatter around him, courtesy of his teammates, that he found it was extremely difficult to be around another person with complete silence descending over them. "So, how've you been?" he asked with unnatural cheer and casualness, watching as the man's fingers hovered gently over the smooth globular head of one of his remaining pawns, like a hummingbird deciding to land.

"I keep busy," was the answer, and his hand instead flitted to a knight and moved it decisively. He looked up, meeting Sky's eyes. "Congratulations, by the way."

It took Sky a few beats to remember why he was being congratulated, and then why the man might know. "Right. Omniscience."

"Comes in handy."

"You're not using it to cheat, are you?"

"I'm not a prophet, Sky. I deal in the here and now."

"And what about this 'grand plan' of yours people are always going on about?"

"Depends on the people." He waited patiently for Sky to take his turn without distractions before he finished. "Faith is a funny thing, Sky. It means different things for different people. It's who and what. Maybe that means faith in me, maybe that means faith in humanity. Faith that the world will keep turning, and the sun will rise the next morning. Faith that your friends will support you, no matter what."

Sky frowned, keeping his eyes on the board as the man moved his rook over one square. Sky studied the board intently. He could see where the man was going, he could see how to stop him. He could see the next move after that, and the one after that, as well. He could see several moves until the end of the game. The man waited until Sky was ready to move, or talk.

"If you're trying to make a point..."

"I can be pretty direct about those, when I need to be." The man tapped one of Sky's captured pawns against the edge of the table. It made a hollow thumping sound.

This wasn't the same game. Sky didn't recognize any of the moves, ones he'd played over and over again for months, trying to figure out where he went wrong. Then he'd had more important things to worry about.

"What's next?" Sky asked, taking his turn and snatching one of the man's bishops. He rolled it over in his palm.

"Well, now I move, then you, then me, then you... we keep going until one of us wins."

"That wasn't what I meant."

"Good. That's not how I work. It isn't about winning, you know, it's about the game. A game doesn't just end when the king gets put into checkmate. A really good game sticks with you." The man smiled benignly. "You've played some good games, Sky."

"I guess."

"You saved Earth from disaster. You saved your friends. What's to 'guess' about? So many people would be proud of that."

Sky thought carefully before answering. "It just doesn't seem like that much."

"Compared to your father?" the man filled in the blanks. "Maybe not. But Sky, you're not your father. You've had a benefit in your training that he never got. Your father never wanted for anything. He was given a leadership position immediately, and he was surrounded by friends with the utmost faith in him. But you had to work hard to earn that respect, to step out of the legacy of your name, and become something more than merely your father's son. I know you think that when Cruger looks at you, he saw Bronson."

"Does he?" Sky asked, at last putting voice to one of the fears he deeply repressed. It was an honor to be compared to Bronson Tate, but it was hard to meet the eyes of those who commended his father's contributions to SPD, and saw Sky in the Blue Ranger uniform. He was the son of one of the greats, yet he could not rise above second-in-command.

"I think you know the answer to that. You don't need me to tell you what your friends think of you."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"You're running out of questions."

Sky ignored this admonishment, because if the man truly was who he claimed to be, then he wasn't lacking for answers. "Is this your only face?"

The man smiled a little. His eyes were tired but amused, carrying the memories of a million things both exhausting and funny. "So you believe now."

"I don't know what I'm supposed to believe. You're big on talk, not so much on action."

"Oh, I do plenty of action. I invented action. I invented talk, too." He nodded once. "Yes, I have many faces."

"Are you Jack?" he demanded. It was a crazy thought, one that niggled only once or twice in the recesses of his conscious, but looking at the man again, he was reminded so sharply of Jack. It was the stiff casualness and the eyes that had seen too much.

"Would I tell you if I was?"

"Probably not. But are you? The evidence presents itself: you came before he did, encouraging me to work together with my teammates. Then he showed up, and started to rip that foundation apart, only to build it back up again. Now he's gone, and here you are. And in the end, he gave me exactly what I wanted."

"The Red Ranger uniform?"

"The ability to let go of the game."

He didn't have to say which game. The man nodded with complete clarity. "It's not a trick of the camera, Sky."

"Just say yes or no. You invented those words, too, right? You'd think you'd be able to use them."

"Jack is Jack. And I'm-"

"Him who is called I Am?" Sky supplied, with an edgy sarcasm to his voice. The man smiled. "You're not going to tell me, are you." He crossed his arms over his chest. "You're annoying, just like he is."

"Are we going to finish the game, Sky?"

"It's all about the game, not the completion."

"Now you're catching on." The man's serenity seemed to feed into Sky's brain, lulling him into quiet for a long time. The next few turns played without even the sound of the chess pieces, to at last be broken by Sky's triumphant, "Check." For all of his questions, he hadn't forgotten his plan. He'd watched the board carefully, and carried out his strategy to the end.

With a flick of the wrist, the man moved his queen. "Checkmate," he said, with utter calm, and horror seeped into Sky's brain as he realized he'd been had again. Different game, same outcome. He'd learned nothing.

"Of course you did," said the man, and Sky wondered briefly if he'd spoken aloud.

Finally, he conceded defeat with a lofty, "Jack doesn't play chess, anyway."

"No," said the man, "he doesn't." He started to gather up the pieces and reposition them on the board. "Go see your father, Sky. He'd be very proud of you."

Sky rose to his feet wordlessly, because despite the casual demeanor of the man in the brown jacket, he felt as though he'd been dismissed. As he stepped off the plateau where the chess field had been set up, he had to glance down to avoid tripping, and his eyes caught the flash of red at his breast, where blue used to be, for so long. Maybe, he thought, it wasn't about dwelling on every move in the past. Maybe it was about taking what he could from it, collecting it, storing it, and using it when necessary.

Maybe it wasn't about thinking five steps ahead to an inevitable outcome, but only thinking far enough that you could still see an out.

Maybe he wasn't ever supposed to know the answer.

Maybe that was the point.


End file.
